June 24, 2015
BioMar Group publishes global report on sustainability
The report outlines BioMar''s ambitious targets for sustainability, and shows the strong commitment the company has towards developing sustainable solutions throughout its activities.
"It is the first time we publish a global report on sustainability, and with this we commit to increased public transparency in our activities via annual disclosures in accordance with the GRI G4 framework", said Carlos Diaz, CEO of the BioMar Group at the launch of the new report.
BioMar has for many years worked very actively with sustainability both in terms of product development, and also through an active collaboration with customers, suppliers, NGO''s and other stakeholders in the value chain. This includes involvement in the elaboration of the ASC standards for salmon and trout and in the development of the IFFO RS standard.
"An essential part of our commitment to increased sustainability is to minimise sustainability risks and support initiatives towards increased sustainability throughout the aquaculture value chain. We recognize that what we do in our operations, the performance of our products, and how we source our raw materials affect our customers'' options to improve sustainability of their operations. The GRI report has to be seen in this light as it creates transparency about our actions both for our customers and other stakeholders," explained Carlos Diaz.
He invited at the same time BioMar customers to enter into a closer dialogue on how to improve sustainability in aquaculture.
According the United Nations, the world''s population will need twice as much food and 30% more drinking water, by 2050. At the same time, the world''s agricultural production is projected to fall by 10-15% in consequence of climate changes. "Aquaculture will be one of the most important elements in establishing sufficient food production and we have a great responsibility to ensure it happens in a sustainable way. Aquaculture must become a pioneering model for sustainable food production," underlined Carlos Diaz.
He also emphasised that while the still more complex diets used in aquaculture allow the industry to grow and contribute to an improved sustainability profile, they also open new challenges as the new ingredients in the diets must all be evaluated in terms of sustainability. "It does not help if we replace scarce marine resources with ingredients which lead to deforestation. We need to make choices which do not just change the problem," he said.
In order to make the right choices, BioMar has within the BioSustain programme developed an Eco-Efficiency tool, which can be used to evaluate not just the sustainability profile of diets, but which can also help fish producers optimise their production towards increased sustainability.
"We have ourselves set some ambitious targets, for example, a reduction of CO₂-emission from our production by 20% per tonne of feed produced. However, the largest environmental impact from fish feed production comes from the production of the feed ingredients, for example, through the consumption of water or the utilisation of scarce resources. Therefore we want to allow our customers to make informed choices when it comes to selecting fish feed, and our own goal is to make eco-efficiency an essential criterion in everything we do," he concluded.
The report can be downloaded from www.biosustain.world